Academic Commons Search Resultshttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog.rss?f%5Bsubject_facet%5D%5B%5D=Military+history&q=&rows=500&sort=record_creation_date+desc
Academic Commons Search Resultsen-usThe New Order and Its Enemies: Opposition to Military Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1789 - 1807http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:163312
Ustun, Kadirhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:21082Tue, 16 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000This dissertation is a study of the New Order (Nizam-i Cedid) army and the opposition it triggered during the reign of Selim III (1789-1807). It aims to present an alternative perspective on the Ottoman military reform and its implications for the course of the imperial transformation. It hopes to contribute to the social history of Ottoman military reform through an investigation of the challenges the state faced as well as the motivations of political, military, economic, and social groups in opposing the new army. This period represented a moment of crisis of great magnitude for the Ottoman imperial center. However, in military and financial terms, it was also a moment of reconfiguration and restructuring of Ottoman state power. Constant contestation and continuous renegotiation of state power occurred between the state elites and various societal actors. These actors did not necessarily have a fixed position on military reform. In fact, the military reform measures were part of the bargaining process and both the state elites and different political actors shifted their positions depending on the circumstances. This study aims to provide an in-depth understanding of the causes of resistance by various groups such as the janissaries, local notables, and common people. It argues that their resistance shaped the possibilities of the Ottoman military reform by challenging the centralized, rationalized, disciplined, and bureaucratic new logic of the modern state.Middle Eastern studies, History, Military historyku2005History, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African StudiesDissertationsNapalm, An American Biographyhttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:163653
Neer, Robert Marshallhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:20893Fri, 28 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000This dissertation offers a history of napalm from its invention in 1942 at Harvard University to President Barack Obama's signature on 21 January 2008 of the first U.S. treaty to limit its use. It describes the incendiary weapon's creation through a partnership between government and academia; deployment in both Europe and the Pacific, culminating with the firebombing of Japan's major cities in 1945; extensive use during the Korean War, and many other conflicts; and transformation in public opinion from a marvel to a monster so horrible Pentagon commanders won't mention it, and commentators routinely cite it as an icon of savage cruelty. The history traces this change in public opinion to media coverage during the Vietnam War that raised awareness of the weapon's effects on civilians; protests against the war and the Dow Chemical Corporation that started in 1965 and defined the gel as barbaric; U.S. defeat in Vietnam; commentary by opinion makers after the war, especially Hollywood film-makers; the rise of a global popular culture linked by electronic media; changes in international law; and development of alternative weapons. The study concludes that napalm's story highlights the significance of worldwide communications and popular culture, the increased importance of civilian casualties in war, the important role social movements and international law play in the formulation of social norms, and the increasing power of global opinion to constrain national authorities.American history, Military history, International lawrmn30HistoryDissertationsArchery in Archaic Greecehttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:160331
Davis, Toddhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:20038Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000Despite a renewed interest in scholarship about archaic warfare, hoplites, Homeric society, and several other related areas, archery in Archaic Greece has managed to escape comprehensive study for half a century. Scholarship on the subject stands in urgent need of update and revision. Certain erroneous beliefs about archery have become canonical and are dangerous impediments to academic progress in those areas of study that require an accurate and nuanced understanding of archers or archery. I conclude that, contrary to popular opinion, there was no point in Greek history when the bow was not used. Rather, it was used in a variety of ways to support, supplement, and complement heavily armed infantrymen. Although archery could be effective, especially against horses and light-armed men, the bow was not as effective against heavily armed infantrymen for the simple reason that arrows would not often have been able to penetrate Greek armor. This factor did not, however, mean that the bow was impotent or "the feeble weapon of a worthless man." My study of wounds, their treatment, infection, and the potential use of arrow toxins adds a fruitful and previously unexplored perspective on the risks involved with facing an archer and some of the psychological considerations of doing so. In a form of warfare wherein armies were so heavily dependent upon morale and so easily compromised by fear, an arrow was a weapon of terror. Moreover, dying six days after a battle of tetanus did not accord with the hoplites' ideal of a `beautiful death' - one of the prospects that fortified a warrior as he girded himself for what was surely a horrifying ordeal. I also argue that the identity of archers changed over time. Early on, warriors might use a variety of weapons and the bow might have been used by just about anyone. Later, with the advent of the hoplite phalanx, archers became light-armed specialists. While convention holds that these archers were Scythian or Cretan mercenaries, I prove that there is no compelling reason to believe that this was so. The archers were Greek and likely derived from the lower classes of citizens. Moreover, despite its ideological demotion among the elite, the bow did not carry an actively negative association until the Persian Wars in the early 5th century B.C.E. In sum, the treatment of archery in the Archaic period is considerably more nuanced than many scholars have allowed.Ancient history, Classical studies, Military historytad2003History, Classical StudiesDissertationsIncendiary Wars: The Transformation of United States Air Force Bombing Policy in the WWII Pacific Theaterhttp://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:131833
Bendheim, Giladhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:10285Fri, 06 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000American history, Military historyHistoryUndergraduate thesesArmies, Navies and Economies in the Greek World in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E.http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:132665
O'Connor, James Stephenhttp://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:10259Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000My study examines a category of data--the logistics of classical Greek warfare--that has not been used before for ancient Greek economic history. This examination provides much new evidence for Greek economies in the fifth and fourth centuries. Close readings of contemporary literary evidence--especially Thucydides--shows that classical Greek amphibious and naval expeditions military forces always acquired their food from markets provided to them by cities and traders. A systematic comparative analysis confirms this conclusion by demonstrating that the economic and politico-social structures of classical Greek states meant that the market was the only institutional mechanism available to them to feed their navies and amphibious forces--in contrast to other European and near Eastern pre-industrial states which could use mechanisms such as requisitioning and taxation-in-kind to acquire provisions to supply their military forces. I then produce estimates of the amounts of food purchased by classical Greek military forces in the markets provided to them by cities and traders by combining data on standard daily rations (from contemporary literary and epigraphical sources) and caloric requirements (established from an analysis of classical Greek skeletal material and WHO/FAO research data) with the relatively precise figures we have in contemporary historians for army and navy sizes and lengths of campaigns. These calculations provide many more figures for trade in grain and other foods in the classical period than we currently possess, and figures that are mostly much greater in scale. The analysis of the provisioning of Greek overseas warfare provides, then--for the first time--evidence for a regular and large-scale seaborne trade of grain in the classical Greek Mediterranean; it shows a world where the development of marketing structures and networks of merchants was sufficiently strong to permit tens of thousands of men to get their food through markets for years at a time. Demonstrating the existence of a regular and substantial overseas trade in grain in the fifth and fourth centuries is crucially important for a wider understanding of classical Greek economies because the existence of such a trade made possible increased urbanization and specialization of labor, and itself could only have been made possible by sizeable reductions in transactions costs for maritime commerce: it therefore provides evidence for the foundations of economic growth in classical Greece.Ancient history, Economic history, Military historyjso2003HistoryDissertations